The Skillery is a Nashville coworking space with resources and programming for freelancers, entrepreneurs, small teams and independent professionals, all aimed at making work meaningful, satisfying and unabashedly fun.

Foundations of Fiction

This class will introduce you to the building blocks of fiction through writing exercises, readings, and group discussion.

Event Description:

This workshop allows new writers to begin exploring the craft, while also offering experienced writers access to the structure and motivation so critical for generating new work. Its approach is exercise-based, focused on generating new story “seeds,” honing voice, and developing a general understanding of the main elements of narrative craft such as character, setting, description, dialogue, and point of view. Students read and discuss published work and share their own work at each class session. You’ll have the opportunity to revise one of the pieces you’ve written during the workshop and participate in a celebratory reading at the end of our workshop.

When does this class meet?

This class meets every Thursday, January 15 - March 5 from 6-8pm.

About the Teacher:

Susannah is a fiction writer, freelance writer, teacher, editor, and native Nashvillian. In 2009, after many years away from her hometown, she returned to put down roots with her family in East Nashville. Since then she has been an adjunct faculty member at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film, and has taught a series of fiction workshops independently, aka the beta-version of The Porch. Previously, Susannah taught creative writing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, at Gallery 37's after-school arts program in Chicago, and in several other youth and community workshop settings. Her first novel, "This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record," was published in 2008 by Featherproof Books, an independent publisher based in Chicago.

Susannah was the recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction for 2013. She has been awarded the Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, as well as residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Oxford American, The Sun, Quarterly West, Corium, Redux, Hobart, Five Chapters, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pindeldyboz.com, Wigleaf, Quick Fiction, and Chapter 16, where she is a contributing writer, among others. She earned her BA with Highest Honors in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

About the Hosting Organization:

The Porch fosters the artistic and professional development of writers and promotes a vibrant and diverse literary culture in Nashville through educational, inspiring, and community building opportunities and events for adults and youth.

The curriculum for Introduction to Entrepreneurship was developed by The Skillery, and is available to organizations worldwide seeking to offer business education and community support to aspiring entrepreneurs.